“You can’t…”
I torqued his hand back down and he winced at the pain. “Try and fucking stop me.” I wrapped a piece of clothing around his shoulder and tied a knot over the gaping wound, tightening it until he screamed out in pain. Small beads of sweat ran down his face and he tried to catch a breath as I started on his leg.
“They’re gonna take you.”
“I don’t care.” I wrapped another piece around his waist, then started on his thigh, just above the first piece of shrapnel and held it there while I reached into my boot for the other half of my lock pick. I stuck the broken toothbrush underneath the makeshift bandage and turned it, tightening the cloth and applying pressure to his leg. The last strip was tied around that to keep it from moving. The improvised tourniquet wouldn’t last long, but it would only need to restrict the blood flow to his limb long enough for me to get him back alive.
“You’re fucking stubborn.” He winced as I checked both bandages and tightened them.
“Guess who taught me?” I swung the bolt action rifle over my back again and tried pulling Chris back up. I made him lean on my good shoulder and we somehow managed to start walking again.
“I didn't know...”
I strained to look over at him as his face contorted with every step on the ground. My thoughts flashed backed to Juno’s teeth and my mind automatically animated them biting into a piece of flesh. I had flung her body into the air and had torn a house in half without even lifting a single finger. I didn’t understand exactly how, but I didn’t have to. I didn't even want to. Chris was still alive. That was all that mattered at the moment.
“I’m sorry.” He pushed me off and flashed a pocket knife in front of me. I tried to take a step closer but he prodded the air in front of my face. He wasn’t kidding.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
He hesitantly kept the knife in between us. “You need to leave me here. You need to go before they find us and they take you back. You need to get as far away from this place as you can. Don’t you get it? They think you're...” He drained his own words and it pissed me off.
“What?”
Just say it. A Paranormal? A goddamn Sed?
He shook his head. “They're looking for you.”
I watched the sun dance across the blade's edge as it shook and kept us apart. No, I didn’t understand, but clearly he didn’t either. “I’m
not
leaving you.” I took a step forward and he swung at me again. I caught his wrist, bending it back and forcing him to drop the knife on the ground as I stuck my face into his. “You’re a moron.” Why did he always have to fight? I pushed him away and swung the bolt action rifle into my arms again.
“They’re gonna hurt you.”
“I don’t care.”
Let them.
I was sick and tired of all the bullshit thrown in my direction. I was sick and tired of all the death and violence and struggling to survive. If they wanted to hurt me, then go for it. I’d survive the torture and show them what it was worth. I’d show them who I really was and then they would be forced to listen. They would learn to be afraid.
I fired off another two rounds in quick succession towards Arrino and looked back at the smoke behind us. Anybody that heard the gunfire was bound to turn and see the smoldering wreckage from miles away. So why wasn’t anyone coming for us? I pulled Chris back up and forced him to keep marching with me.
It didn't last long until he finally dropped down again.
I turned him over. His breathing was shallow. His eyes looked glazed over and he had trouble keeping me in focus. “Chris. Hey, come on...” I slapped his face only to get the same response.
I got back up and started pulling him across the ground. Everything hurt. Everything burned at the effort. He was too heavy for me, but I wasn't going to give up. Not with Chris. I wouldn't let it happen.
I looked back and finally noticed a blurred shape growing more distinct as it flew closer across the ground. I peered through the scope on my rifle to see two pickup trucks speeding towards us, clouds of dirt dragging behind them like coattails. There was no turning back anymore. I stood next to Chris with my gun at the ready as the two cars split off and surrounded us before stopping.
Four screaming men armed with rifles jumped out of each truck and threatened to shoot us. I held my hands up and was quickly disarmed and shoved down. A knee pressed itself into the small spot of my back while a hand kept my cheek against the dirt.
“Please!” I could see my heavy breathing kick up a cloud in front of my face. “He needs help! He’s hurt.” I craned my neck just in time to see Chris as a boot stomped right in front of my nose before making its way over to him. I instantly recognized who it belonged to.
“Well,” said Kyle. “Would you look at this...” The men surrounding Chris brought him up to his knees. “Let him go.” They did as ordered, and Kyle stopped just in front and looked at the burning building off in the distance before coming back down. “It looks to me like you’ve had more than enough time to think it over.”
I struggled to understand. What the hell was he talking about? Why wasn't he helping him?
“So what's it gonna be?”
Chris simply wavered in the air for a moment. I didn't think he even knew what was going on, but he eventually answered, the word precise and unmistakable. “No.”
Kyle nodded. He seemed to mull it over before casually pulling out a pistol and pressed it down against Chris' forehead. “Suit yourself.”
He pulled the trigger.
I screamed.
Chris' body heaved inward and fell over onto its side, motionless. His eyes stared away as the blood began to trickle down, but there was no movement. His body was kept still. He wouldn't move. All I wanted was to see him move.
I yelled and shook as hard as I could while someone kept me down and taped my hands together behind my back. I watched, my vision already beginning to blur, as a pair of men grabbed his lifeless body before stopping at Kyle’s command.
The insults never made it past my broken nerves. My mouth hung open and everything came down over my face. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't understand how it had all been taken away so quickly. I let myself go. I was paralyzed. I barely noticed as someone rolled me over and slapped a piece of tape over my mouth before dragging and loading me onto the back of a truck.
I could hear the doors slam shut and the engine turn over and we started to move. The endless blue sky stared back in front of me, the rush of air blowing my hair over my face and stifling the salt that stung against all the wounds that fought against my pores. I lost myself in the vast expanse. The emptiness washed over while my body tumbled with every bounce of the car. The ground blurred past on either side faster than I could have ever gone on my own, the whole time the sky there as if I was nothing.
The view was abruptly blotted out by a bag that was thrown over my head, shoving me into utter darkness. I waited, completely helpless, until my body moved at the familiar sound of the brakes and I was picked up by the arms and dragged out of the car. I heard shouting as I was led across concrete, and then the sudden absence of human voices turned into footsteps as I was pushed into a building and led into another room. I was shoved into a chair and handcuffed to something metal. I tried testing the bands around my wrists.
“Don't.”
I froze at the word, which was quickly followed by the sound of a handgun being cocked and primed to fire right behind my head. I didn't move anymore. I could hear a door close and I tensed my arms, but I didn't dare stretch anything past a few inches, the constant threat of a bullet flying through the back of my skull at any time always on my mind. Whoever had spoken could have left, or there could have been more than one person in the room with me. It didn't matter. It had worked. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t scream for help. I could only replay the same scene in my mind again and again as I paced out the torture and waited for it to end.
It had to have been hours by the time the door opened again and someone saved me from my agony. The handcuffs were taken off my wrists and the bag was pulled from my head. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. By the time they did, I finally realized I had been sitting in a classroom and the sun was already beginning to set again. The last rays of light fell through the windows and threw everything into an orange hue. I had been alone for the whole day.
Alone.
Alone because Chris was dead.
I looked up to see Ryan as he tore the tape off my mouth before walking back to the blackboard. It was just the two of us and it had been a while since we had been alone together. He still limped with every movement, but the swelling around his face had long died down to only a few scars that littered the area above his neck. I waited in an uncomfortable silence as he paced around the teacher’s desk at the front of the room, ultimately deciding to stop there and stare at me for a moment before skipping the formalities.
“Do you have any idea how much bullshit you’ve caused us?”
I didn’t bother answering. I didn't see the point of it all. I had given myself up to help Chris, but nothing had worked out the way it had supposed to. Even with all the questions that were swimming around in my head, there wasn’t any reason for me to go along with the demands anymore.
Ryan didn't care. He walked over to the door again and swung it open, ushering somebody else inside. “Bring him in.”
A pair of guards brought in another man with a bag on top of his head and sat him down in the seat next to mine.
Ryan dragged his chair over so that we'd be facing each other. He pulled the bag off and my stomach dropped to see Jeremy stare back with a piece of tape over his mouth, his eyes sunken and his cheek bones more pronounced from lack of food along with a stream of faded bruises.
Jeremy glanced around before his eyes settled on mine, and they suddenly changed to grow somber. Who looked worse between the two of us?
Ryan stood just to our side. “We know his friends have been planning on making a run for it.” He put a hand on Jeremy’s head and pushed it to the side, making him glare back in silence. “Soon, if I’m not mistaken.”
I watched Jeremy's eyes again as they fell back onto me. I knew he wanted to ask what had happened, if I was okay, why my face had been cut open and covered in blood, but I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn’t have even guessed what he had gone through while I was gone. It finally made me give in.
“What do you want?” I hadn't said anything all day. The words were harsh and dry.
“There’s something out there looking for you and it’s not human.”
Juno.
Ryan leaned in over my desk and stared. “Why?”
I shook my head. Out of all the questions he could have asked me, he had to pick the one that I couldn’t even answer. I didn't know, but it didn't matter. The burning wreck was proof of it from miles away. “She'd dead.”
My face suddenly swung away against the back of his hand and I let my bangs hang over my eyes while I stared at the ground. The cuts on my cheek burned like no other. I set my jaw through the motions and tried not to focus on the pain. It was the first time he had ever hit me.
“Don't you fucking lie to me.”
I glared back up at him. “I'm not!”
“Then what the hell have my men been shooting at for the past five hours?”
No...
That was impossible. She couldn't have been alive. How could anything have survived that? I didn’t get much time to think about it before he walked behind Jeremy and squeezed his face at an awkward angle.
“We're gonna use him and his friends as bait. Which means if you don't tell me why this thing is looking for you, he’s gonna die. His friends are gonna die, and—”
“I’m telling you I don’t know!” I screamed into his face. Whatever he had planned wouldn't work. It would be pointless. So many people would end up dying for nothing.
He pounded a heavy fist on my desk and spat back. “That’s fucking bullshit! That fucking nut job shows up out of the blue as soon as this thing did and just hands himself over. Then you both disappear. What the hell did he say to you?”
Chris?
My tongue felt numb as I failed to come up with the correct thoughts. What could he have possibly known that I didn't? Only Kyle knew enough to ask him something before he shot him.
I opened my mouth, but stopped as the sudden realization hit me. I glanced at Jeremy's worried face and then back up at Ryan. Someone was keeping a secret from all of us and Ryan didn’t know either. “Kyle doesn’t know we're here...” I let the thought slip my mind and it pissed him off.
“What the fuck did you do?”
“I don’t know.”
He slammed another fist on my desk and ran at me, pushing my chair back and yelling into my face. “YOU'RE LYING!”
I stuttered for a moment, nervous, but I kept my mouth shut. I got up as he lifted my desk and he threw it across the room, forcing me to step away until my back hit the wall and he shoved his hands above both of my shoulders.
His lips curved into a hard snarl as he screamed at me. “Do you have any idea what the fuck you did?” He swung a fist towards my face and it slammed into the drywall, leaving a gaping hole right next where my head had been a split second earlier.
I cowered into the corner as he kept the pressure up, his hands close to my face before leaning in with his own.
“You stupid bitch… I don’t care how important anyone thinks you are. You keep this up and you’re gonna wind up in a ditch somewhere like your goddamn friends.” He shoved himself off of me, but all I could think about from his words was Ellie.
The nervous little girl’s face flashed in front of my eyes again. I couldn’t escape the thought of her lying motionless somewhere as the wind blew back her hair and collected dirt on the tips of her face, her eyes boring holes in the sky.
“Fuck you.” I could feel the anger rise up from inside my chest and flush my cheeks as Ryan stopped and turned to look back at me. I couldn't control it anymore. And I didn't want to. I wanted him to hear it. I had let everything out. I wasn’t in control of myself anymore. There was no composure, no more hiding behind a hollow shell.
“What the fuck did you just say to me?” He marched back over to my corner and shoved his face in front of mine, grabbing my neck and forcing my head up. “WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?”
I could feel his damp breath on my skin as I strained to get my own past the fingers clenched around my throat. I could feel the rhythmic pressure of my veins threaten to burst while I looked into his eyes and watched them bounce across my face, back and forth, looking for any sign of resistance. I tried to think of what he would have done to me if I had stayed there, speechless like I had before. Instead, I decided to give him an answer.
The resistance around my wrists slowly melted away in warmth and I carefully pulled the pistol from his hip and pressed it in-between his legs. “Fuck you.” I said it again, louder, and I could see his eyes slowly shift as he recognized the pressure. I prodded the end of the barrel deeper into his flesh and pushed his hand off of me. “Get the fuck away from me.” I got out of the corner and shoved him back into the center of the room.
His men immediately brought their own guns up and threatened to shoot, but he waved them off.
He started to smile. “You really think you’re gonna kill me now? Is that it?” He managed to laugh, the only sound in the world at the time that could have struggled to question my anger and coerce my finger into sending a bullet away from me, through his heart and out into the wall. “Come on, Jessica...”
“Let him go.” I waited as the men dropped their guns and set Jeremy loose and Ryan brought my attention back.
“You're nothing. You're the same piece of shit I found before and you forget the only thing you're good for whenever you open your goddamn mouth. You're gonna wind up with a bullet in your face, just like your fucking army— ”
“SHUT UP!” I took a step forward and screamed, pushing out against all the feelings in my mind. All the chairs slid away from me in a sudden burst of speed and I pressed the front of the pistol against Ryan's head. “Shut. Up.” My hand started to shake, but I cocked the hammer back with my thumb and shoved the barrel further into Ryan's temple until he winced from the pain.
He wouldn't stop. “I fucking knew it... you're a goddamn Sed—”
I pulled the trigger.
Ryan only blinked, and it took me a moment to realize what had happened. The hammer had flown forward, only to end with a metallic
click.
The round had never gone off.
I quickly cycled the slide and pointed the gun back at Ryan's face, the faulty bullet hitting the floor and rolling off past the desks. He wouldn't be lucky enough to survive it again. I tensed my finger just as Jeremy sprung forward with a rifle in hand, saving Ryan from death for the second time in a row.
“Tess—don't.” I still kept the gun up and he put a hand on my arm. “We need him.” He gently made his way towards my wrist and grabbed my hand, forcing the shaking to stop. He didn't understand.
“I need to kill him...”
“I know.” He carefully pushed the pistol down until it pointed at the ground, never taking his eyes off of me. “But we need him if we're gonna get everyone out of here.” I glanced back at Ryan and took in his scouthering demeanor. He should have been dead. Instead, we were letting him talk.
“Kyle’s in the theater... Alone.”
He could have just been trying to save his own skin, but it didn’t matter. I immediately went for the door when Jeremy caught my arm again and I shoved him back, holding the gun up between us to keep him from getting any closer. The door swung open automatically and crashed itself into the wall for my escape. “Don't...”
Jeremy brought his hands up, stared over my shoulder and then peered at the gun pointed at him in silence, suddenly looking hurt. “Tess... You're not one of them.”
Them?
The implication already hurt. I never expected it from him. I had the sudden urge to give up and cry, yet it quickly melted back into anger.
He seemed to trip over his own words. “You don't have to do this.”
“Are you gonna try and stop me?”
He stared at me for a moment and slowly shook his head. “No.”
I could feel my stomach and chest ache as the word settled, but I put it to the side. If he didn't care, then why should I? I stormed out into the hallway and picked a random direction. It didn’t so much matter how I got there. I was going in for the kill. There was no way I would leave without paying a visit to the man that needed to die.
My boots echoed across the hard floors and through the empty hallways, every step reinforcing exactly how I felt. I couldn't see anything else. There was only what I needed to do, and where I was. I needed to move and I needed to kill. I wanted to feel the sensation that the witch had shown me up close and personal. I needed to take his life.